True Despair
by felicityoverlordsmoak
Summary: The times Oliver felt despair and his journey to finding out what it means to lose Felicity.
**de·spair**

(dəˈsper/)

 _noun_

the complete loss or absence of hope.

 _verb_

lose or be without hope.

The first time he felt complete despair was the moment Robert Queen put the gun to his dead. At the age of 22, he hadn't known much else besides sex, drugs, alcohol, and Laurel. The first twenty two years of his life, he lived with no purpose. Day after day, one excursion after another, it was an endless journey through Starling City's socialites. Then suddenly everything changed.

Laurel, his long-term girlfriend, proposed to move in together, and like every other times when things got too serious between them, he cheated on her. However, instead of some girl he met at the club, he chose Sara - Laurel's little sister with a huge crush on Ollie. He was _that_ type of boy. He was a boy who slept with endless numbers of women because he feared commitment, because he didn't know what it was like to have responsibilities. All of his life his parents bailed him out on any and all accounts of problems - peeing on a cop, punching a paparazzi, stealing a cab, etc. He was never held accountable for anything he did.

Then suddenly the entire world was placed on his shoulder.

 _You can survive this, make it home, make it better right my wrongs, but you got to live through this first._

It was the first moment he felt true despair.

How was he supposed to make it home?

They were stranded in the middle of the ocean with no end in sight. For days, he drifted between stages of consciousness and unconsciousness. He was never going to make it home.

No one has found them.

No sight of a rescue team.

No land.

Even if he made it to an island, how would he survive? As a billionaire, his meals were brought to him. How would he hunt for food? For now long will be be hunting? How will he signal to incoming boats and planes?

For days he lay in that raft, drifting hopelessly.

The second time he felt complete despair was when he found Tommy at CNRI the night of the Undertaking. His best friend died believing him to be a cold-blooded murderer. He never got the chance to tell Tommy that he could be with Laurel. He never got the chance to explain to Tommy of how much his friendship meant. For five years, he battled between good, bad, and grey.

For five years, Tommy remained his best friend and even when he didn't know the biggest parts of Oliver he trusted him. He began this crusade to save the people his father and the elites of Starling City had wronged, but along the way he wronged Tommy in so many ways and he would never have the chance to redeem himself. What would Tommy want? He had asked himself. But there was no answer. Because like Thea said, "Dead people don't want anything. That's the perks of being dead."

The third time was when Slade Wilson drove his blade through Moira's chest. The emptiness of her eyes. Thea's cries. It etched into his brain. Constantly reminding him of his failures. He failed to save Shado the same way he failed to Sara and now he had failed to save his own mother. He was faced with the same decision, over and over again, only to watch someone he loved die. Because of him.

He didn't know how to stop Slade. He fought and lost many times, perhaps too many times. Although Moira wasn't the best mother figure, she was a mother he wouldn't have changed for another. She did what she did out of love and no matter how much he disagreed with her he couldn't help but admire her strength. She stood alongside Malcolm Merlyn to protect her children and redeemed herself to the city. He admired that strength, the strength that he believed could protect Thea when he couldn't.

Then came Felicity.

Felicity was a strong girl who didn't care about what he wanted or what he thought was right. She asserted her thoughts and stood firmly before him when no one dared to. She never wavered. She sought out the greater goods, saw the good in people when he failed to, encouraged him to take a different path, and brought him back from his own darkness. She was the light and he thrived in that light. Because she was beside him, because she was a an array of colours and emotions, he, too, felt it. When Sara died, rather than feeling complete despair, he felt sad. He felt _scared_.

For the first time in many years, Oliver was scared. he was scared of dying alone in that basement. He was scared of being there, of being without her. She allowed him to hope; she allowed him to see that it was possible to be Oliver Queen and the Arrow. Felicity should've left. She should've saved herself the heartache and left. He would've understood. But she didn't. She never did. She helped him because it wasn't about her feelings. It was about keeping the streets safe and fighting against a greater evil than his own demons. And god, he was entranced by her. Every single day was a better day with her. It didn't matter that he was being brainwashed in Nanda Parbat. It didn't matter that he was dying on the cliff. He was at peace because she was safe. He would do anything if it meant that she was safe. If she was out there living her life, falling in love, having children, and smiling, he was content.

But she wasn't smiling. She wasn't smiling anymore. Blood seeped from her lips. The same lips that had been on his minutes before. The same lips that said "Yes" to a forever with him. Those lips brought him back from the dead more times than he can remember. She wasn't smiling. She wasn't talking. She wasn't moving. The Felicity that never understood the art of being quiet, of being still was now motionless. The warmth that she possessed was now gone and he couldn't bring it back. He couldn't trade himself for her. He couldn't die in her place. Everything felt like a dream.

The sound of sirens, John's shout for them as the paramedics made their way towards the couple. Someone telling him that they needed to load her onto a gurney and bring her to the hospital. Someone telling him to let her go. He held her tighter against his chest. He couldn't let her go. He couldn't let this light go.

Not yet, not ever.

How will he live without her? How could he ever go on? How will he continue this mission without his heart? Because she was it. She was his heart. His purpose for returning home. What would become of him without her? When the paramedics managed to pry her from his arms, the began working frantically on covering the wounds and stopping the bleeding. Then it happened.

The machine went dead. A loud noise filled his head. He couldn't understand it. Why was it so loud? Why didn't her heart beat? She couldn't be dead. Felicity wouldn't die without him. No, she wouldn't. She promised him forever and she always kept her promise. He promised to keep her safe and where Felicity was concerned he never failed that promise. Until now.

True despair was the thought of living a life without her. Of a Felicity-less life. A life where he wouldn't wake up tangled in her arms. When he didn't open his eyes to a face full of blonde, where she didn't take the blanket in the middle of the night, where she didn't try to make him breakfast and burning everything in sight. A life without her constant babbles, her fits of anger when he get himself injured because he refused to admit he was wrong, was no life at all. A life without Felicity was a life of a dead man. A life without Felicity was a life with no home. That was what despair felt like.


End file.
